Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Go with the Dual Flow: Evaluating the Psychophysiological Adaptive Fitness Game Environment “Plunder Planet”

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Serious Games (JCSG 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10622))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Exergaming is approved by health and sport science for its improvement of physical activity and therefore is an attractive way to counteract childhood obesity. The body-centered game genre provides a motivating, multi-modal and -sensory workout experience for the player.

But the attractiveness and effectiveness of exergames can be improved even further. Game research points out the need for adaptive exergame environments, which balance player skills and in-game challenges as well as player fitness and workout intensity. This individually adjusted training positively affects the player’s engagement, enjoyment, motivation, and physical performance. Numerous studies delivered further insights into the impact of body movements, motion-based controllers and in-game mechanics on the player’s gameplay experience, and made suggestions for specific game balancing mechanisms. However, there is limited knowledge on how to design holistic psychophysiological adaptive exergame environments. We aim to fill this gap with the design of the psychophysiological adaptive fitness game environment “Plunder Planet” for children and young adolescents.

We conducted a study which compares the impact of a non-adaptive and an adaptive version of our exergame on the attractiveness and the effectiveness experienced by the player. We were able to show that the adaptive version holds significant benefits compared to the non-adaptive version. Furthermore, the study compared the player’s experiences when playing “Plunder Planet” with two different controller types: our specifically developed full-body-motion controller and the commercially available Kinect2®. Results confirm our controller design decisions, including the positive impact of haptic feedback and physical guidance on the player’s GameFlow experience and enjoyment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/childhood/en/

  2. Mazzeo, D., Arens, S.A., Germeroth, C., Hein, H.: Stopping childhood obesity before it begins. SAGE: Phi Delta Kappan 93(7), 10–15 (2012). doi:10.1177/003172171209300704

    Google Scholar 

  3. Oh, Y., Yang, S.: Defining exergames and exergaming. In: Proceedings of Meaningful Play, pp. 1–17 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Osorio, G., Moffat, D.C., Sykes, J.: Exergaming, exercise, and gaming: sharing motivations. Games Health: Res. Dev. Clin. Appl. 1(3), 205–210 (2012). doi:10.1089/g4h.2011.0025

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Wiemeyer, J., Temper, L.: Edutainment in sport and health. In: Nakatsu, R., Rauterberg, M., Ciancarini, P. (eds.) Handbook of Digital Games and Entertainment Technologies, pp. 883–908. Springer Science + Business Media, Singapore (2017). doi:10.1007/978-981-4560-50-4_67

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Murphy, E.C., Carson, L., Neal, W., Baylis, C., Donley, D., Yeater, R.: Effects of an exercise intervention using Dance Dance Revolution on endothelial function and other risk factors in overweight children. Int. J. Pediatr. Obes. 4(4), 205–214 (2009). doi:10.3109/17477160902846187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Harris, K., Reid, D.: The influence of virtual reality play on children’s motivation. Can. J. Occup. Ther. 72(1), 21–29 (2005). doi:10.1177/000841740507200107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Fery, Y.A., Ponserre, S.: Enhancing the control of force in putting by video game training. Ergonomics 44(12), 1025–1037 (2001). doi:10.1080/00140130110084773

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Sohnsmeyer, J.: Virtuelles Spiel und realer Sport – Über Transferpotenziale digitaler Sportspiele am Beispiel von Tischtennis (Virtual games and real sport–About the transfer potentials of sport games using the example of table tennis), Hamburg, Czwalina (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Sohnsmeyer, J., Gilbrich, H., Weisser, B.: Effect of a six-week-intervention with an activity promoting video game on isometric muscle strength in elderly subjects. Int. J. Comput. Sci. Sport 9(2), 75–79 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Csikszentmihalyi, M.: Flow. Harper Collins Publishers, New York (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Weibel, D., Wissmath, B.: Immersion in computer games: the role of spatial presence and flow. Int. J. Comput. Games Technol. article no. 6, pp. 1–14 (2011). doi:10.1155/2011/282345

  13. Sweetser, P., Wyeth, P.: GameFlow: a model for evaluating player enjoyment in games. Comput. Entertain. 3(3), 3 (2005). doi:10.1145/1077246.1077253

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Bianchi-Berthouze, N.: Understanding the role of body movement in player engagement. HCI 28(1), 40–75 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Pasch, M., Bianchi-Berthouze, N., van Dijk, B., Nijholt, A.: Movement-based sports video games: investigating motivation and gaming experience. Entertain. Comput. 1(2), 49–61 (2009). doi:10.1016/j.entcom.2009.09.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Nijhar, J., Bianchi-Berthouze, N., Boguslawski, G.: Does movement recognition precision affect the player experience in exertion games? In: Camurri, A., Costa, C. (eds.) INTETAIN 2011. LNICSSITE, vol. 78, pp. 73–82. Springer, Heidelberg (2012). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-30214-5_9

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Skalski, P., Tamborini, R., Shelton, A., Buncher, M., Lindmark, P.: Mapping the road to fun: natural video game controllers, presence, and game enjoyment. New Media Soc. 13(2), 224–242 (2011). doi:10.1177/1461444810370949

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Stach, T., Graham, T.C.N.: Exploring haptic Feedback in exergames. In: Campos, P., Graham, N., Jorge, J., Nunes, N., Palanque, P., Winckler, M. (eds.) INTERACT 2011. LNCS, vol. 6947, pp. 18–35. Springer, Heidelberg (2011). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-23771-3_2

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Kim, S.Y.S., Prestopnik, N., Biocca, F.A.: Body in the interactive game: how interface embodiment affects physical activity and health behavior change. Comput. Hum. Behav. 36, 376–384 (2014). doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.03.067

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Sinclair, J., Hingston, P., Masek, M.: Considerations for the design of exergames. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Australia and Southeast Asia, pp. 289–295. ACM, New York (2007). doi:10.1145/1321261.1321313

  21. Altimira, D., Mueller, F., Clarke, J., Lee, G., Billinghurst, M., Bartneck, C.: Digitally augmenting sports: an opportunity for exploring and understanding novel balancing techniques. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016), pp. 1681–1691. ACM, New York (2016). doi:10.1145/2858036.2858277

  22. Gerling, K.M., Miller, M., Mandryk, R.L., Birk, M.V., Smeddinck, J.D.: Effects of balancing for physical abilities on player performance, experience and self-esteem in exergames. In: SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2014), pp. 2201–2210. ACM, New York (2014). doi:10.1145/2556288.2556963

  23. Altimira, D., Mueller, F., Lee, G., Clarke, J., Billinghurst, M.: Towards understanding balancing in exertion games. In: Proceedings of the 11th Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE 2014), pp. 1–10. ACM, New York (2014). doi:10.1145/2663806.2663838

  24. Cardona, J.E.M., Cameirao, M.S., Paulino, T., i Badia, S.B., Rubio, E.: Modulation of physiological responses and activity levels during exergame experiences. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-Games), pp. 1–8. IEEE (2016). doi:10.1109/VS-GAMES.2016.7590353

  25. Mueller, F., Vetere, F., Gibbs, M.R., Edge, D., Agamanolis, S., Sheridan, J.G., Heer, J.: Balancing exertion experiences. In: SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2012), pp. 1853–1862. ACM, New York (2012). doi:10.1145/2207676.2208322

  26. Martin, A.L., Kluckner, V.J.: Player-centred design model for psychophysiological adaptive exergame fitness training for children. In: Schouten, B., Fedtke, S., Schijven, M., Vosmeer, M., Gekker, A. (eds.) Games for Health 2014, pp. 105–109. Springer, Wiesbaden (2014). doi:10.1007/978-3-658-07141-7_14

    Google Scholar 

  27. Martin-Niedecken, A.L., Götz, U.: Design and evaluation of a dynamically adaptive fitness game environment for children and young adolescents. In: Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, pp. 205–212. ACM, New York (2016). doi:10.1145/2968120.2987720

  28. Robergs, R.A., Landwehr, R.: The surprising history of the “HRmax = 220-age” equation. J. Exerc. Physiol. 5(2), 1–10 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  29. World Medical Association: Declaration of Helsinki. Law Med. Health Care 19, 264–265 (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Kliem, A., Wiemeyer, J.: Comparison of a traditional and a video game based balance training program. Int. J. Comput. Sci. Sport 9(2), 80–91 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

We thank Koboldgames GmbH for their excellent cooperation in the realization of the “Plunder Planet” game scenario.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Subject Area Game Design, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland

    Anna Lisa Martin-Niedecken & Ulrich Götz

Authors
  1. Anna Lisa Martin-Niedecken
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ulrich Götz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna Lisa Martin-Niedecken .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Mariano Alcañiz

  2. Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Stefan Göbel

  3. Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent, United Kingdom

    Minhua Ma

  4. SINTEF Technology and Society, Trondheim, Norway

    Manuel Fradinho Oliveira

  5. University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge

  6. Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Tim Marsh

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Martin-Niedecken, A.L., Götz, U. (2017). Go with the Dual Flow: Evaluating the Psychophysiological Adaptive Fitness Game Environment “Plunder Planet”. In: Alcañiz, M., Göbel, S., Ma, M., Fradinho Oliveira, M., Baalsrud Hauge, J., Marsh, T. (eds) Serious Games. JCSG 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10622. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70111-0_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70111-0_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70110-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70111-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics